If one considers reasonable the expectation that the theme or spirit of the holiday season be present in a book titled A Christmas Beginning, Anne Perry’s low-key historical mystery is bound to fall short. The story could be set during any season without altering the plot in any way. Since, furthermore, the novel’s skeletal composition under-utilises the historical and geographical setting, any enjoyment hinges on the characters and the mystery. I believe those able to derive most satisfaction from A Christmas Beginning are readers familiar with the author’s William Monk series who may be disposed to treat this restrained little drama, centered upon a recurring character, as an enlightening vignette.
Circa 1864. Feeling he has made a mistake in spending his lonely Christmas holiday on the bleak Welsh island of Anglesey (Ynys Môn), London police superintendent Runcorn is shocked out of his gloom by the discovery he makes on a morning walk. Sprawled among the gravestones of the Beaumaris church is the body of the vicar’s sister, viciously stabbed to death.
A peaceful community, the islanders desperately want to believe the crime was committed by some lunatic outsider, resenting the dour Londoner’s suggestion to the contrary. Nevertheless, the local authorities have no experience in murder investigations and reluctantly accept Runcorn’s offer of assistance.
The case has personal significance for Runcorn since the victim strongly reminds him of a woman he knows he can never have. Her presence on the island is both an inspiration to do well and a constant ache. But the one thing his humble roots have never stood in the way of is the truth.
The dedication page of A Christmas Beginning reads, “To all those who dream impossible dreams”. The sentiment alludes to the hopeless love that haunts the book’s principal protagonist, Runcorn (if his first name is stated anywhere in the novel, it has eluded me). Although the simple plot is held together by a murder mystery, it primarily functions as a character sketch of an introspective, pragmatic, middle-aged career man who learns to “play second fiddle” and in the process has a moral epiphany which enables him to rediscover what truly matters to him.
Runcorn’s internal dialogue and emotional responses are recorded in minute detail, to the extent that I feel the story is less about the murder – front and centre though it is in the plot – or its impact on the shocked, grief-struck community (the word ‘grief’ is used with noticeable frequency) than on Runcorn’s development arc. While I know nothing about the William Monk series (the blurb did not state that the book ties in with it) other than what I afterwards found while trying to establish a time frame for the action, Perry provides the details necessary to form a rough idea of Runcorn’s background. Where the matter grew confusing for me was in the disjuncture between the person he appears to be in A Christmas Beginning and the spare facts I was given about his professional life in London. I had trouble making the sensitivity, caring, and discomfiture he shows in A Christmas Beginning fit the attributes implied by what I was told about his career personality: aggressive, unpolished, and tactless. I assume the intention was to flesh out a prominent secondary character by making known a previously unimagined dimension to that character, thus providing illuminating entertainment for readers who may have thought of him only as Monk’s disagreeable supervisor. I came to the book with no preconceptions in this regard and ended up quite fond of his ill-at-ease manner, rough honesty, and tongue-tied passions.
Where I keenly felt the lack of context that comes from being an outsider to a well-established series was in the omission of period detail. So vague and thin is the historical setting that I quite forgot the first page’s mention of hansom cabs and gaslight – which are not exactly the most helpful markers anyway – and for a good part of the story kept visualising characters in 1920s-1930s garb as the mood seemed in line with a vintage story from the golden age of mysteries. This haziness translates to the location, which is outlined in the thinnest of strokes, place names and object names often standing in for description.
Emotions run high in the story but oddly did not engage me. I felt like an observer, politely sympathetic but too wary of the scenes played out before me to actively feel much for the plight of the characters. Partially, I suspect, it is due to the theme of repression and the manner in which Runcorn and others try to stifle their natural reactions. More than the much-touted grief, many scenes bristle with anger that rarely spills out in full force. If the author’s idea was to make the reader feel the effect of living in such an environment, I have to say it worked on me. However, the general mood it establishes is sombre; I came away subdued, but not in a humble, spiritual way. Despite an ending designed to lift hearts, this is not the book I would choose to reread in order to invoke a warm, joyful Christmas spirit.
A brief note on a few other characters. As the well-born woman from whom Runcorn is divided by Victorian class barriers and money, Melisande Ewart is benevolent but nebulous as a protagonist; she comes across as a Victorian man’s idealised vision of womanhood, vaguely angelic. The reason for this impression is that she is more vividly realised in Runcorn’s emotions than in the brief encounters the reader is allowed directly with her. Runcorn’s reactions to her inform and guide his every action in the novel whereas any independent glimpse the reader is given of her personality is severely limited. Sir Alan Faraday, chief constable and Melisande’s putative fiancé, seems far more substantive in his abrasive snobbery, just as John Barclay, the brother of Melisande, is in his unremitting hostility toward Runcorn.
An interesting issue raised by the plot is the restrictive condition of unmarried Victorian gentlewomen. Barred by social codes from making a living and made to understand that remaining at home beyond adulthood would constitute an unacceptable financial drain on the family, they were expected to do their duty by treating marriage as a career. Therefore – as long as the class she belonged to was not shamed – who a woman married was not nearly as important as the imperative that she do marry. The choice not to marry or to marry for love represented a freedom few gentlewomen dared hope for. By contrasting the lives of two characters in this situation, characters who opt for differing paths, A Christmas Beginning examines the difficulties faced by women who attempted to defy the expectations of society and their families. The novel’s treatment of the subject was easily the most absorbing part of the narrative for me, but the space allotted to it precludes true depth, if not feeling. Ironically, this plotline initially perplexed me as I had not consciously grasped that the story was set in Victorian times (and certainly I never suspected, even after stumbling over a second mention of carriages, a period set as far back as the 1860s). I kept thinking, isn’t this a bit too old-fashioned even for a remote corner of Britain in the early twentieth century?...
I am grateful that A Christmas Beginning was not the first novel by Anne Perry that I read. A monochromatic sketch of repressed passions, its bland setting and austere mood resulted in a dreary reading experience for me. To be fair, my annoyance at the extremely tenuous connection with Christmas unquestionably played a part in this. In any case, unlike The Sheen On The Silk, which turned out to be one of my favourite reads this year, its meagre satisfactions would probably not have inspired me to explore the author’s work further. Still, Anne Perry writes too well for A Christmas Beginning to be considered a bad read; I simply expected more.
